


Ready for the Bad Things to Come

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Hospitals, Poisoning, Sick Character, skirting around the area of character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16203266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: Expansion of an older ficlet done as a commission. Sorry it took so long, but I was newly inspired. Kara finds Cat barely conscious... drama ensues.





	Ready for the Bad Things to Come

“Miss Grant?” Kara calls out because she can _hear_ Cat breathing, and her heart beating. It’s just that both are slower than normal, almost sluggish. And Cat is nowhere to be seen in the glass and white landscape that is her office. 

Kara’s missed working here, but she hasn’t been gone long enough for Cat to have discovered ways to elude her. It’s a habit she’s tried to break around the office, but Kara lowers her glasses down her nose and blasts the wall of Cat’s private suite of back office and bathroom with x-ray vision.

In the time it takes to see in Cat’s slumped form on the floor - no more than a blink - Kara’s super speed has her charging across the office and through the bathroom door. 

“Cat!” Kara gasps, moderating her strength even more carefully than usual as she reaches out to touch Cat’s cheek. She’s cool to the touch, clammy almost, and suddenly the dread trips from gnawing uncertainty into full-blown panic. Kara expected a grunt and a sarcastic remark about how _it’s called a hangover, Keira_ , because good intentions be damned, Cat still resorts to that wrong name when she’s in a mood.

But Cat isn’t saying anything, and that heartbeat that’s been waning since Kara first sought it out is getting slower and weaker with every struggling beat.

Kara knows what to do when presented with a burning building, or a hostile alien. She’s improvised with exploding toys and screaming banshees. What she knows perilously little about is human biology, and how their beautiful, breakable bodies actually work in all the ways that Kara has never had to worry about.

In the absence of a better plan, Kara reverts to what has become her default. In an instant her super suit is in place, her hair still settling as she scoops Cat tenderly into her arms. Before making a break for the balcony, and National City’s largest and best emergency room, Kara spies the torn envelope on Cat’s desk. Kara shoves that inside her suit and vows to kill Eve because _always open her mail_ was a first-day rule that Kara repeated at least 20 times. It doesn’t matter that it’s after 8 and Eve has gone home for the day. Or that the envelope was clearly hand-delivered.

Kara has to blame her because otherwise, she’s going to start blaming herself. 

With a leap she’s off the balcony, Cat cradled against her chest and making the wind feel different as it rushes towards them. Over the din of the city and the roar of her own motion, Kara hears that flickering heartbeat start to falter. She’s less than a minute away, so she strains with every muscle to push past every limit she knows about. 

When she lands, there’s a team of medics waiting for their next ambulance to arrive, but Cat is on the gurney before a single protest can be raised. Kara barks at them with the ruthless efficiency Cat has taught her and they spring into action, heroes that can save where Kara cannot. 

As they prepare to rush the gurney into the trauma bay, Kara sneaks the fastest and gentlest of kisses, pressed against Cat’s forehead.

“Be okay,” she whispers, as they take Cat away. “Please, come back to me.”

Then Kara turns her back, as she has on every other disaster in her life, and waits for the next blow to land. 

***

If Kara really wanted to hide, she should have picked somewhere more discreet than the top of the CatCo building. Alex finds her within the hour, the substance in Cat’s blood having spiked an alert straight to the DEO.

“You took her in?” 

Kara nods.

“Why not stay? Something else going on?” Alex presses, edging closer. Of course, Kara would catch her, but Alex doesn’t want to get any closer to the edge of the building all the same. “And how do you know it isn’t something that affects you? It’s alien in origin, did you know that?”

“I’m fine,” Kara grunts, turning away from her sister. “You can go. They’ll call me if…”

“What are you doing?” Alex explodes on the question. “Kara, this isn’t you. You don’t run from things.”

“Maybe it’s time I started.” Kara scrambles back onto her feet and takes off into the night. 

***

It’s not like Kara has to be there in person to keep track, anyway. She cuts through the skies of National City like a dagger, her anger perhaps a signal to criminals that whatever they’re planning can wait for another night. Her interventions are swift and furious, barely breaking up the fight or dropping the robbers at the nearest police precinct before taking off again. She takes no bows, accepts no thanks. Whatever she does can’t make up for the one, most important thing that she couldn’t.

Her soundtrack, every second, is Cat’s heartbeat. Sluggish like when Kara found her at first, then something has it skipping along at a far more regular beat, giving Kara faint hope before the worst sound she can imagine.

Or rather, the absence of sound. Cat’s heart stops beating and it’s fully 63 seconds before they get her back. For every one of those seconds, Kara hangs frozen in the night sky. She doesn’t hear a single siren or shout, just the echoing silence of every beat that isn’t there.

When the first stuttering thump of that familiar heart kicks against Cat’s chest, Kara drops from the clouds like a stone. Only her natural healing ability stops the impact with the ground doing any real damage. She walks the three miles to the hospital, step by measured step. There isn’t even enough of a breeze to ruffle her cape, and it hangs on her shoulders like a dead weight. 

The nurses and orderlies buzz around her when she trudges into the Emergency Department, brushing off their questions and offers of help. She doesn’t need a room number, or to be shown which curtain. All Kara has to do is follow the thud of Cat’s heart, stronger with every passing second. 

The crash team don’t blink when Kara pulls back the curtain. She recognizes a DEO agent in their midst, dressed in regular scrubs. They’ve got this.

“Supergirl?” The agent calls out to her. “We need to cool her down to stop the poison from spreading. We have ice packs, but is there any way you could…” He makes a blowing motion with his lips, and Kara nods. The staff clear the immediate bed area and Kara exhales with a gentle frost on her breath, brushing across Cat’s exposed skin like a caress. Her silk blouse is halfway torn off, her skirt gone and replaced by a hospital blanket for modesty. Something beeping fast on a monitor starts to slow, and the staff clap in relief. Kara takes that as her cue to stop.

“Will she be okay?” She focuses solely on Tristan from the DEO. His answer is the only one that matters because humans can handle regular medical emergencies, but only he knows about the alien kind.

“We’ll know more after some more tests.” He doesn’t blink, doesn’t let his jaw tremble for even a second. He’s confident, which is something. Only Kara remembers how all the adults she knew on Krypton had that same defiant confidence, right down to the last few days of a dying planet. They knew too much, they thought. They were too clever and talented to actually lose. Kryptonians believed that for far too long, and Kara won’t fall into that trap.

“Call me, when you know.” Kara doesn’t make it a request, and he doesn’t ask how. If he’s been at the DEO any length of time he should know just saying the right words out loud will be signal enough to Kara. 

She goes back outside, ready to lose herself in the pains and battles of the city at night. Only the calls never seem to come, one of those freak statistical nights where crime just tapers out, as though even criminals have times when they can’t quite be bothered. Maggie and the other NCPD cops have a nickname for it, something like the opposite of a full moon, but Kara can’t call the term to mind. 

Her apartment is cold and feels so empty, but it’s the one place she can wait undisturbed. She wraps her cape around her, though it doesn’t bring much warmth, and she waits. 

***

Alex wakes her by pounding her fist against Kara’s industrial-style front door. In her haste to open it, Kara pulls the damn thing off its hinges, a miscalculation she hasn’t made in years.

“Is she-” Kara can’t hear the heartbeat, she’s lost it somewhere in the confusion of drifting off then waking with a fright. “Alex…”

“Cat’s hanging in there,” Alex reports, dumping a double box of pastries and a tray of coffees on Kara’s kitchen island. “But the lab confirms the powder she ingested has a kryptonite base. Our working hypothesis is that it was supposed to be slower-acting, allowing her to infect you. The good news is that the timing of the delivery suggests they were targeting you as Supergirl, one of those famous late-night chats. Morning post would have meant they knew that Supergirl worked in the building, and that would be a whole other problem.”

“You think I care about my secret identity right now?” Kara asks, looking down at her suit, crumpled from the long night. “No, I know. I have to. Better get ready for work. Rao knows what everyone will try to pull with Cat out of commission.”

“You’re going to… what? Run CatCo on the fly?” Alex asks with a snort, before noticing that Kara is deadly serious. “Kara, you have enough to do. What with your actual job, and Supergirl duty?”

“I have to, Alex. You just said that whatever almost killed her was targeted at me. There is no point in Cat Grant surviving if I’ve let her company fail.”

“It’s a big company,” Alex points out, still unconvinced. “She can’t be running that much of it hands-on, right?”

Kara just shrugs. Nobody outside of CatCo ever really understands.

***

It’s plain sailing for a day or two because in many ways Cat _is_ a master delegator who has hand-selected the very best people to run her divisions and departments. On first glance, nothing is that different at all, save for the appropriately hushed and dramatic updates every second hour on Cat’s condition, limited news which really gives nothing away. It’s harder to keep Carter from coming home early from a visit to his grandparents; thankfully not Cat’s mom, who seems utterly unmoved by the news that her only daughter is in some kind of coma. She doesn’t even ask Kara to book her a flight or send the jet, just requests ‘regular updates’.

James steps up in a way that makes Kara proud of him, but even he can’t replace Cat when it comes to the details, to the hundred little quirks that make her the only person who can truly run CatCo as it’s meant to be done. 

“No, no, no,” Kara grumbles, circling the three instances of orange in the weekend pages and sending them back to the Art Department with a frazzled intern. Sure enough, it brings James up to Cat’s office to question the rejection.

“It’s too long-winded to explain, trust me,” Kara says, sinking into the cream-colored couch. She’s so tired, and there’s a whole night of Supergirl duty to come. “But if Cat wakes up and sees orange on the layouts after she specifically…”

“Is she?” James asks. “Going to wake up? I’m watching our coverage and we’re not telling people anything. The stock price took a hit, but everything seems to be in limbo.”

“It is,” Kara agrees. “In limbo, that is. All we can do is wait and see if she pulls through. All my powers and I’m no more use to her than any other human. Less, even. Isn’t that crazy?”

“Hey.” James crosses the room, lays a gentle hand on Kara’s shoulder. “It’s okay to be upset. You don’t have to take all this on. CatCo will be just fine, it always is.”

“I’m not worried about the company,” Kara finally admits, and it’s so easy to fold into the hug. As just friends, James is one of the few people she can count on, and it’s a relief beyond measure to let go for a moment. In his strong-for-a-human arms, Kara can pretend that everything is okay. 

“Well, there’s even less point worrying about Cat Grant,” James tells her, voice soft. “You know nothing keeps her down for long. She doesn’t allow it.”

“It’s my fault she’s sick,” Kara tells him. “Carter could lose his mother, so could Adam when he just got her back. All because of Supergirl. Did Kal ever… does he ever regret going public? Knowing how many times people came after the Planet offices, or Lois… or you?”

“He doesn’t say much, but… yeah,” James says, as they sit side by side on one of Cat’s office couches. “He gets this look, this way his jaw kind of sets and you know he’s wishing he’d never put that cape on. Then something good happens, and he remembers why Metropolis needs him.”

“I think the world needs Cat Grant more than it ever needed Supergirl,” Kara admits. “I’ve saved some lives, locked up some bad guys, but I haven’t built anything lasting. Nothing like this building, these networks that tell people the truth and make them happy.”

“You know Cat would be the first to disagree with that, right?” James doesn’t get a chance to hear her reply. Kara’s phone beeps halfway through the question, a message from Tristan the DEO agent who’s watching over Cat. 

Luckily, James is more than used to speedy departures in the middle of a conversation.

***

Kara flies so fast she’s barely done changing into her suit by the time she lands. _Can you get here soon?_ Was all the message said, and all Kara needed to read to have her in motion. She zips down corridors to Cat’s private room on the ICU. It’s depressing that the space has no flowers, no decoration of any kind beyond the muted pastel paint on the walls. There are gifts in abundance, the ones still wrapped taking up two tables along one wall. Kara scans the adjoining wall to see that an empty room next door is holding all the flowers and gifts not suitable for a controlled environment. Cat is going to insist on this level of germ-free for her office if she ever wakes up.

No, Kara scolds herself. When she wakes up. Which it turns out has already happened, because although she looks pale and exhausted, Cat is sitting up in bed with the help of Tristan and a pile of fluffy white pillows.

“There you are,” Cat says, voice raspy. “Can you explain to this judo instructor playing nurse that I’m _fine_?”

“Are you?” Kara demands, striding across the room with her cape flicked out behind her. “Because from what I’ve heard you almost died, Ms Grant. More than once.”

Kara looks at the monitors around the bed, wishing she’d paid attention all the times Alex had tried to explain them to her. Are those good beeps? They seem calm. The lines and numbers don’t really tell anything that Kara understands. 

“Could we have the room, please?” Cat asks, nudging Tristan away from her bedside. He looks to Kara, who nods in agreement. A moment later it’s just the two of them, Cat staring Kara down from her prone position on the bed.

“So…” Kara could have sworn she had a thousand things she wanted to say to Cat. All she can think of is _thank Rao_ and that’s another part of her past she doesn’t want to explain. 

“He works with you?” Cat nods towards Tristan, who’s assumed guard duty outside the door. There are other DEO agents in the building, Kara knows that much. “At your other job I mean. I’d recognize him if he had shown up at CatCo. How is my company, by the way?”

Kara flounders for what must be a full forty-five seconds to find an answer. Cat knows. Cat is asking. Cat won’t look away and let Kara just formulate one more reasonable cover and…

Cat _knows_. 

She seems to recognize the moment Kara accepts that as a done deal, a point they can’t return from. 

“James stepped up. Everyone has been pulling together, working hard.”

“A glance at my phone says you’ve been busiest of all. I know your work when I see it, _Keira_. No one else would have been able to play the part of me so convincingly.”

“I’m nothing like you, Ms Grant-”

“I’m not wearing makeup and if I got out of bed in this gown I’d be flashing you. So I really think Cat will do. Especially since I gave Supergirl permission to call me that. Come, sit.” Cat pats the bed, right next to her leg. Kara does as she’s told, feeling as heavy as an asteroid when she sits on the soft blanket. 

“Cat, I don’t know how much you remember…”

Cat tilts her head, considering. “What your government thug told me lines up with what I remember, just about. I must have called out for you, when the powder took effect?”

Kara nods. “I knew it was serious because you got my name right. Even then, I was still hoping you’d just been out with Miley Cyrus again. Anything but finding you like… like that.”

“Oh, Kara.” Cat pats her gently on the thigh. “I didn’t think. After all you’ve lost, to walk in and find me like that. I shouldn’t have called for you.”

“No, you should! Otherwise it might have been too late!” Kara is adamant about that. “If I couldn’t get you here in time, if you had… if you had…” The tears overtake her then, all the days of stressing and worrying bubbling up in each choking sob. “... sorry,” she manages to squeak out.

Cat reaches out and pulls Kara close. “Come on, Kara. I know we’re not at work, but you can’t cry over me like this. Not like this.”

Kara puts her own arm carefully around Cat’s waist, securing their casual embrace. It’s so easy to fit her head against Cat’s shoulder, into the crook of her neck. Kara listens intently for any sign of strain, that the pressure is too much for Cat in her weakened state. All she gets in return is a spike in Cat’s heartbeat. 

“Why not?” Kara asks, when the tears are mostly under control. “If we’re not pretending anymore, why do I have to pretend you’re just my mean boss and I don’t care what happens to you?”

“That’s not what this is,” Cat warns. “You care about everyone. It’s exhausting, frankly. But you don’t break your heart crying at every sick or injured person you see. So… don’t make it look like more than it is, that’s all.” Cat starts to pull away, but Kara stays with her, holding her close. “I couldn’t bear that,” Cat whispers. 

“And I couldn’t bear losing you,” Kara whispers right back. “I heard your heart stop, do you know that? I almost fell out of the sky.”

“Well, you tell me… is it beating now?”

“Mmm,” Kara confirms. “Pretty fast for a human.”

“Kara…”

“Don’t tell me to go. Please.”

“... I won’t.” Cat wriggles a little. “I should have known from your previous hugs. You’re not one for letting go first, are you?”

Kara shakes her head gently. The moment has lasted so long, so perfectly, that she knows it’s greedy to want more. Still, she doesn’t want to let Cat go now she’s safely in Kara’s arms again. When Cat finally shifts, trying to get comfortable, Kara relents and pulls away to sit on the end of the bed. 

“Your obligation is done, Kara.” Cat looks away then, toward the window even though it doesn’t have much of a view. “You can go now and I’ll understand.”

“See, this is why I have to stay,” Kara argues, standing to reinforce her point, hands on her hips.

“Why?”

“You’re clearly not yourself. The Cat Grant I know and, well… love--I said it!” Kara lifts a finger to silence the instant protest from Cat. “I said it, and I am not taking it back. Anyway, that Cat would assume the whole world has a crush on her without blinking. So stop trying to be noble, okay? That’s not what I fell for.”

“Really?” Cat demands with a delicate snort. “You must have fallen for the selfishness? The workaholic thing? No, wait, it must be my easygoing nature and balanced temperament.” She’s smiling by the time she stops listing, and Kara smiles right back at her.

“You can probably work on the whole temper situation.” Kara’s willing to concede that much. “But otherwise, yes.” Kara takes a deep breath and admits the truth of it. “You, Cat. Exactly as you are.”

There’s no mistaking the way Cat’s features soften, that whatever riposte she has is lost to the compliment.

“I could try to manage you, or change you in all those subtle ways. But it didn’t work as your assistant, and it sure as heck wouldn’t work coming from someone who’s… more.”

Cat watches her, considering, Then, at last, she speaks again. “Heck, Kara? Really?”

“Just like I won’t try to stop your gentle mocking comments,” Kara seizes on the chance to demonstrate. “And you won’t… I guess, ask me to stop doing this just because we’re dating.” She gestures to her suit. 

“We’re dating now?”

“It really feels like the next step,” Kara says with a shrug. “Are you up for it?”

“Well, I’ll definitely need a shower first. Find out if my interior designer ever found one with a ‘Silkwood’ setting, if… oh.”

“Oh?” Kara was just getting carried away.

“You can’t be my assistant anymore. You shouldn’t even work for me in any capacity, you should be-”

“We’ll figure all that out, too. Together.” Kara steps in closer, hair falling around them like a blonde curtain as she leans over Cat. “But first, you need to get better, because you know what’s second?”

“What?” Cat has the thrill of the hunt in her eye again.

“This,” Kara says, and kisses her with days of panic, and years of everything from affection to relief. They kiss and kiss, trading the softest touches of their lips followed by more definite pressure. It’s enough to make Kara greedy, but the taste of cheap hospital toothpaste in Cat’s mouth reminds her that there are other priorities. 

“Right,” Cat says as Kara sits back at the end of the bed. “I suppose that wasn’t terrible, as incentives go.”

“Wasn’t terrible,” Kara parrots back to her, placing a hand over her heart. “You really know how to woo a girl. Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Oh Kara,” Cat sighs in her most dramatic fashion, even if it’s a little muted by her recovery. “I haven’t even started. When I _woo_ you, Charlotte Brontë, you’ll know about it.”

“That sounds like a promise?” Kara can barely hold back her nervous giggle, taking Cat’s hand in both of hers. 

“Then it’s a promise,” Cat says. “Now, for the love of God, can someone get Carter on the phone? I have a child to reassure.”

“You got it,” Kara says, slipping her phone from her boot and jabbing his number on the screen. She hands it over to Cat, who wrinkles her nose, a sure sign she’s getting emotional and doesn’t want it witnessed. “I’ll be right outside.”

“Kara?” Cat calls after her, thought she could be heard without ever raising her voice. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” Kara replies, although with her head still spinning and her lips still tingling, it feels very much like something.

Something she can’t wait to get started. 


End file.
